Fight Week! - How Good is Anderson Silva? - aholbert32's Blog

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aholbert32's Blog

Fight Week! - How Good is Anderson Silva? Stuck

Posted on July 12, 2012 at 05:03 PM.

(5)

Numbers don�t lie: 32-4, 15-0 in the UFC, 10 straight title defenses. 13 finishes in the UFC alone. Six years undefeated. Has only lost 6 rounds in the UFC. The numbers alone show arguably the greatest fighter the world of MMA has ever seen.

Your eyes don�t lie: No one fights in MMA�s top promotion and looks almost perfect. Everyone has multiple bad outings or loses fights eventually. Everyone but Anderson Silva. He�s destroyed (the only way to describe it) a long list of fighters from Vitor Belfort to Rich Franklin to most recently Chael Sonnen. No other current champion or fighter has looked as impressive for as long. Still, is Anderson Silva the greatest MMA fighter ever?

I racked my brain for arguments against Silva�s greatness and now that he finished his greatest challenge (Sonnen), I could only think of one: Silva competes in perhaps the weakest division in the UFC when it comes to talent. I�m not saying the Middleweight division has no talent. I stating that during Silva�s reign, no fighter within that division has been on his level.

Since 2006 (the year Silva entered the UFC), here is a list of champions and #1 contenders in the Middleweight division:

Champions:

Rich Franklin
Anderson Silva

#1 Contenders:
Travis Lutter
Nate Marquardt
Dan Henderson
Patrick Cote
Thales Leites
Demian Maia
Chael Sonnen
Vitor Belfort
Yushin Okami

Now lets look at the list of champions and #1 contenders in the Light Heavyweight Division during the same time:

Champions:

Chuck Liddell
Rampage Jackson
Forrest Griffin
Rashad Evans
Lyoto Machida
Shogun Rua
Jon Jones

#1 Contenders

Randy Couture
Babalu Sobral
Tito Ortiz
Dan Henderson

Looking at both lists, its clear that there is a big talent differential between those two divisions. The Light Heavyweight division has three current UFC Hall of Famers and everyone else on that list with the exception of Babalu has a legit chance of becoming a Hall of Famer. The Middleweight list has been top heavy as it contains three greats (Franklin, Belfort and Henderson) but drops of significantly with four fighters who are no longer in the UFC. There are rarely easy fights for UFC champions but you could argue that Silva has had 2-3 of them while in the UFC. Cote received a title shot when his biggest win was a split decision over Ricardo Almeida. Leites� biggest win was over Nate Marquardt in a decision he only won because Marquardt had 2 points taken from him. Lutter�s title shot only came because he won the Ultimate Fighter Season 4 and his biggest win was over Cote. 10 title defenses is impressive but when 30% or more of the defenses were against fighters who were either outclassed or underserving�it takes a little away from the accomplishment.

The question is would Silva reach 10 title defenses if he were fighting in a talent pool like the Light Heavyweight division?

I�ll be back later this week to discuss UFC on Fuel 4, the Strikeforce card and the Khan/Garcia fight. If you have a comment about the blog, post below or tweet me at @aholbert32.

Comments

# 1 threattonature @ Jul 12

I think what makes it hard to measure Silva's division is that he's been so dominant. It happens all the time in sports. In boxing, the most dominant fighters usually fought in weak periods. If Muhammed Ali never lost his boxing license, Joe Frazier would've never had the chance to become champion and known as a legend. If Ali happens to beat Frazier as he's rising up as a contender Frazier would go down in history as just another name. Frazier's ascension then allowed Foreman to become a huge name by beating him.

If Silva left the division for a few years it would give other fighters a chance to shine and become a huge name on his resume. But as long as he can knock them off before they can become champion the division as a whole will be looked at as weak.

I see the same happening to the light heavyweigh division as well if Jones remains dominant.

# 2 seventwenty3 @ Jul 12

Chris Weidman looks to be a good match-up though.

# 3 DaSmerg @ Jul 15

Every sport needs it's legends. Helps the brand. UFC is no different.

I won't get into dismantling the legend but I will say that the '...everyone but Anderson Silva...' line is not entirely truthful and that there is the reality the guy hasn't fought more than twice a year for a long time now.

Not trying to take away from his accomplishments, more of a refocus the color of those glasses a bit.

# 4 TheShizNo1 @ Jul 24

If Silva was having bad matches here and there or had been defeated, I'd say it's just the division. But he runs through people. Like you said, he actually looks damn near perfect in his fights. Silva is the only fighter that when he drops his hands, I'm thinking, game over.

Shad, Bones Jones, and Henderson are the only ones that I think would have given him trouble.....common denominator between those three, all great wrestlers.

I feel like us fans are watching the Jim Brown, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan of MMA right now.